Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Adrian-Webbs-Trout-Tips » A Tale of Two Seasons
A Tale of Two Seasons
By Adrian (meppstas) Webb
In this article Adrian meppstas compares the last two trout seasons before talking us through his top performing Mepps spinners for the 2019/20 season, along with some tips for fishing them.
It's been just under three months now since the closure of my 19th trout season, since moving to Tasmania back in March 2000. It was a season where the trout fishing fluctuated quite a lot and a season that was very frustrating at times. Looking back on it the Meander and the tannin waters were the best, while the Mersey River wasn't as good as I had hoped for but still gave up some nice trout. The biggest disappointment was the Leven River, which fished well below average with the lack of trout being caught in it.
Compared to last season it was the small tannin waters and the larger Meander River that gave up the majority of my catch for the 2019/20 trout season. The Mersey River only gave up trout in the upper reaches, while the lower reaches weren't worth fishing due to poor water quality and the lack of trout present. As for the Leven River, well I have no idea what the reason was for the lack of trout in it. Last season every trout water that I fished gave up some good to great end of season catches. Here's a comparison of the 2018/19 season versus the 2019/20 season.
Mersey River 2018/19: 21 trips, 89 brown trout and 19 rainbow trout caught and released.
Mersey River 2019/20: 13 trips, 53 browns and 11 rainbows.
Leven River 2018/19: 6 trips, 60 brown trout.
Leven River 2019/20: 6 trips, 18 brown trout.
Meander River 2018/19: 23 trips, 157 browns and 5 rainbows.
Meander River 2019/20: 11 trips, 113 browns and 1 rainbow.
Tannin streams 2018/19: 20 trips, 220 browns.
Tannin streams 2019/20: 33 trips, 224 browns.
As you can see, I did have less trips this season when compared to the previous season and the catch rates were very close on average, however I still wasn't satisfied with how I fared throughout the season. I've always been one that sets myself a high standard when trout fishing and when I have a poor season or a river isn't fishing all that well, I'm never satisfied. To me, a good spin session in a river is when I've caught and released at least ten or twelve trout.
Another thing that I look back on is that if I had landed half of the trout that I hooked and lost during the season, my total catch would have been much higher... by at least ninety fish! This coming season will be my 57th year (and a self-taught trout angler) of chasing trout in rivers in South Australia and now here Tasmania, since March 2000. How it will end... well I can't answer that one yet, however hopefully it will be better than the last one. Then again, in saying that, I'm sure there's a lot of trout fishos out there who would be more than happy to catch what I caught and released in a trout season.
One good thing that came out of the 2019/20 trout season was catching my 10,000th Tasmanian wild trout, since moving here. This is something I never thought I would achieve. The trout season here in Tasmania reopens again on the 1st of August and it's one that I'm looking forward to, as I do each and every season.
Top Performers
My top Mepps inline spinners for the season varied on and off throughout the trout season, however I feel that the Mepps Aglia spinner was the number one lure in the end. This lure did extremely well in every river I fished and continually drew the attention of the trout, in both clear and tannin waters. One small #00 Gold Aglia spinner caught well over one hundred trout for the season, which is something that rarely happens. That little inline spinner has now been retired and framed.
It's always hard to make a top five selection as all the Mepps inline spinners work well on the trout. The Bug spinners in the March Brown, Stonef Fly and White Miller models also all caught their fair share of trout during the nine months of the trout season. Then there's the Aglia Mouche Noire and Black Fury spinners, which did their job when the trout were moody and one had to work hard to entice them to strike.
Early in the season, it was the Aglia Fluo (Tiger) and Furia spinners that did the job on the trout, in icy cold waters. While another Mepps spinner did a good job in warmer waters, the Aglia Fluo Micropigments in Brown/Gold and Rainbow Silver models.
As you can see I used a variety of Mepps inline spinners through the season, all of which did a great job on the trout... as they always do. Around ninety eight percent of my trout caught and released each and every trout season are taken on the Mepps inline spinners. The lure sizes that I use vary through sizes #00 (1.5 gram), #0 (2.5 gram) and #1 (3.5 gram), with the small #00 and #0 used in small, shallow, fast water tannin streams, along with the larger shallow fast waters, while in the deeper medium/fast flowing rivers I use the #0 and #1 spinners.
As most trout fisher's know, trout can be on one day and off the next... they can also be on and off all in the one day! I've had days when they've taken the Gold Aglia in the first hour of fishing and then turned off it. A change to a Black Fury and it was fish on again. There's been plenty of trips when I have used five different Mepps lures and each and every one of those lures caught fish. That's how trout can be any day one chases trout in a river.
I use the Aglia spinners more often in the fast water runs, because of the larger blade that rotates at a wider angle than the narrow blade of the Black Fury and is therefore more easily spotted by the trout. The Bug and Black Fury spinners are well suited to slower fast water and medium flowing stretches of river, although I have often given them a workout in hard fast water runs and caught trout on them.
What you do have to remember is that the trout's eyes are very light sensitive, so using a bright coloured or a silver bladed spinner isn't the go-to lure in clear water on a sunny day in Summer. That's where the Stone Fly and March Brown coloured Bug spinners come into it. They're a great lure to use during the warmer months, as are the black bladed Aglia and Black Fury spinners. In darker tannin waters I'll use the Fluo, silver and gold blade spinners early in the season, when the rivers are at their coldest. The White Miller Bug spinner also does a good job in cold and warm tannin waters too.
There's one thing that I do with all of my lures and that's to set the treble hooks off centre. That's done by using a small set of pliers and lightly twisting each hook of the treble off line to the shaft. It's something that I've always done because I believe that when a fish has a go at the spinner, the offset trebles have a better hook up rate than a straight treble... however that's just my opinion. Also, when fishing heavy fast waters, I flatten the spinner blade because it creates a better blade rotation in these heavy fast flowing waters. This is just something that I've picked up since moving to Tasmania and fishing the fast waters, which is something that I didn't have to contend with when trout fishing rivers in South Australia.
Adrian (meppstas)